I saw my usual doctor today (as opposed to the unfamiliar one I saw last week because mine wasn't available), and after a thorough examination she said I'm still much sicker than I thought. Curses! Apparently, bronchitis lingers, so I'm still highly contagious and my immune system is still compromised. I'd been unconsciously basing my analysis of my current state of health on a comparison with how I felt last week, so I thought I was doing pretty well, but it was only as compared to horribly horrible horribleness.

Apparently, the doctor I saw last week was pretty worried by how bad my bronchitis was & had a talk with my usual doc about her concerns. She apparently described my bronchitis as very serious. Yikes! I knew I felt terrible, but I always question my own judgment and wonder about possible hypochondria, so I didn't know how my bronchitis rated on the General Bronchitis Scale of Badness. Apparently, I've got a particularly bad case.

It's true that I'm still utterly exhausted all the time & don't really have the energy to even engage in conversation. When I go for even just a mile-long walk, I pretty much collapse afterward. When I take a few deep breaths in a row, I start coughing and coughing and coughing. If I do engage in conversation, it leads to coughing and coughing and coughing.

But I'm now sleeping through the night and I don't feel like my chest is going to explode right out of my chest when I cough (which is admittedly still pretty frequent), so I've been feeling like things are pretty damn good. It kinda sucks to be told that I'm still really sick.

The doc said that she strongly urges me to continue to mostly quarantine myself for at least 3 more days (more if I'm still coughing), try to rest most of that time, continue taking my bronchitis meds, etc. Compared to last week, I feel like the picture of health & I'm sick of being stuck in the house, so I'm frustrated. But I don't want to drag this out longer than is necessary, and my doc warned me that I could have a drastic relapse if I don't take good care of myself, so I'll be a good little girl and take it easy.

Comments

This sounds terrible, and very much like when I had what turned out to be actual whooping cough a couple years back. Bronchitis progressing into pneumonia in the right lung. How long have you been sick?

My normal, unimpressive, unremarkable cold suddenly developed into a bad cough on Monday the 29th, and then it kept getting worse and worse and worse until Thursday the 1st, when I was coughing so hard and in such long fits that it felt like I was going to throw up or have an aneurysm (and I hadn't slept almost at all in 3 days, due to coughing). So I went to the doctor the next morning, got diagnosed with bronchitis, and got meds. I've been slowly improving ever since, and I now feel pretty good, but it's now been almost 2 entire weeks of being mostly quarantined, and I'm beyond stir crazy.

I now sometimes go an hour or two without coughing at all, which is fabulous, and even the coughing I do now is a mere runtish kitten compared to the previous coughing's angry lion. I barely even notice the measly coughing of today.

It is very funny to be writing this comment toward a "House" icon. He does not look impressed by my misery. Luckily, it is now *past* misery. Things are pretty good now, and on Tuesday morning I shall once again release myself upon the world.

I guess I should be glad I went to the doctor when I did: pneumonia and whooping cough sound considerably nastier!

Don't have many icons left, but House did seem appropriate again, for once.

It sounds like a lot of the same, honestly. Embarrassingly loud horrible cough and all. It took forever to go away, though. I was lucky the doctor went ahead and checked on the off chance that it was pertussis-- I was vaccinated when I was a kid, but there are new, resistant strains cropping up now. The pneumonia was also weird-- while I was sick, I became unable to sleep on my right side, which I did frequently, because I couldn't breathe. Turned out that was the side with the bad lung, which I guess couldn't handle the compression or something.

Um, in conclusion, I guess... meds are good? The advair inhaler helped a lot. Also, when it does clear up, you will be completely amazed about breathing. Seriously. Like, holy crap, I took a deep breath and there is no coughing, that is wild.